Nicola Barker - Heading Inland

Leanne passed him on the stairs. ‘Watch out,’ he said, ‘Aunty Susan’s got a cob on.’

Leanne stopped. ‘A cob,’ she said, ‘is a kind of loaf, a round loaf, sort of twirly. Or it’s a male swan. That’s a cob.’

Scott continued his descent. ‘Grandad said Nan had a cob on this morning when the champagne cork went through the kitchen window.’

‘Fair enough.’ She turned and climbed up, making her way into Susan’s room.

Margaret was standing in the doorway, her hands on her hips. Leanne squeezed past her.

‘Now what?’

‘Guess.’

Susan turned to face her.

‘Susan, I’m sorry, but that’s exactly what you asked for.’

‘What?’

‘You wanted it Elizabethan.’

‘I wanted Elizabethan, but I didn’t want it looking like I’d shaved three inches off the hairline. It looks like I’m going bald. The top’s like a bloody. .’

‘It’s a bouffant,’ Margaret interjected. ‘That’s what you’d call it.’

Leanne added, ‘It’s like Glenda Jackson in that film about Elizabeth I.’

‘Bloody great. She looked like an old sow in that film. I hated that film.’

Margaret sighed. ‘I quite liked it.’

‘You would.’

Susan put up a savage hand to her hair, but only patted it. Leanne said, ‘Maybe it’ll look better when the veil’s on.’

‘Piss it.’

Margaret picked up the tray again. ‘Are you going to eat any more of this?’

‘No. I’ve got indigestion.’

Susan turned and stared into the mirror. She didn’t, she decided, look anything like herself . Maybe that had been the idea in the first place, to look unlike herself. My face, she thought, looks like a bee sting. Red and puffy.

A beautician had called around first thing to do her hair, her skin, her make-up. Even her nails. She inspected her hands. The nails, at least, looked pretty and polished. She said, ‘My face is still all red.’

Leanne had been pilfering the breakfast tray. She was holding a large, brown sausage between her finger and thumb, readying herself to take a bite. Susan’s comment distracted her. The sausage wasn’t yet quite cold.

‘A facial,’ she said, ‘wasn’t a very good idea. I mean, you should’ve had it two or three days ago. A facial brings out all the impurities. As soon as I have one I always get loads of spots.’

‘I was spotty before.’

‘You look fine.’ Margaret managed to sound convinced of this, adding with equal certainty, ‘This is your day.’

‘You should’ve got married in hot-pants, like me.’ Leanne grinned, remembering.

‘Yeah, well, I wanted to be a traditional bride. I wanted a traditional wedding. Now my face looks like a cow’s arse, I don’t suppose that’s going to happen.’

Margaret said, ‘You’ll be wearing a veil. You’ll look fine.’

‘Where’s the dress?’

Leanne was eating the sausage. It was pink at its centre. Downstairs she could hear Scott slamming the glass-panelled door between the living room and the kitchen. He’s going outside, I bet, she thought. He’ll mess up his suit. She said, ‘I told Scott about holding your train again this morning. He promised to try and be more careful with it.’

Susan scowled. ‘The little sod’ll probably sit on it and have me dragging him down the bloody aisle. Where’s the dress?’

‘On my bed. It only arrived an hour ago. I’ll go and get it.’

Margaret took the tray downstairs, knocked on the kitchen window at Scott, who was poking around in the pond with a twig, then returned upstairs to her bedroom to fetch the dress. She had laid it out on the bed earlier. It was covered in plastic but glossy inside; a pale creature in its transparent chrysalis. She picked it up carefully and took it through.

Leanne was fiddling with Susan’s hair. She was saying, ‘If you just leave the back down then it’ll look like it always does.’

‘Well, do a French plait or something, then.’

Margaret interjected, ‘Simon doesn’t like it when you do it that way.’

Leanne smiled. ‘Last time I did it for you he said it looked like you had a randy armadillo clinging to your scalp.’

Margaret tutted. Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. That’s strange, she thought, I must be nervous. She lay the dress across Susan’s bed and then checked her watch. ‘Fifteen minutes before the car comes. I’ve not even powdered yet.’ She put her hand up to the front of her fringe to check that she’d taken her curler out.

Leanne said, ‘Don’t worry, I’m doing a pleat.’

Susan grimaced at her reflection. ‘Make sure it doesn’t stick out. I hate it when they stick out. Makes you look like one side of your head is bigger than the other.’

Inside Susan, waging a battle with her irritability, was a little voice saying: It’s going to be fine. It’s going to be all right. She said, ‘Leanne, switch the radio on. They always do dedications and a song for people getting married on Radio One at this time on a Saturday. Gary Davies or someone.’

‘Let me pin this in first.’

‘I’ll miss it.’

She yelled, ‘Mum! Can you come back in here? Can you come and switch the radio on?’

Scott wandered in. ‘You want the radio on?’

Susan nodded. Leanne almost dropped the pieces of hair she was holding. Scott sat on Susan’s bed and fiddled with the small radio on her bedside table.

‘Just switch it on. Don’t mess with the tuning.’

He switched it on. A voice said ‘. . especially Mandy and John in St Albans from the gang down at the rowing club. This is for all of you .’ The dedication was followed by the opening few strains of ‘Endless Love’.

‘I don’t believe it. I bloody missed it. I waited twenty-four years for this moment and I missed it.’

Leanne pushed the final hairclip into the pleat and then stood back. ‘Rubbish. You hardly ever listen to the radio any more.’

Susan kicked at the leg on her dressing table. ‘I bet there was a request for me and I missed it.’

‘I don’t think anyone sent a request in. Simon didn’t mention it either.’

‘Maybe everyone in the office or down the pub. .’

Leanne laughed. ‘You never even mentioned it before now.’

Scott switched the radio off. Very tactful for an eight year old, Leanne thought. He then said, ‘Only gits listen to Radio One.’

‘Go and look up “git” in the dictionary.’

‘I did earlier. It means. .’ He considered the word he was about to use. ‘A comptemptible person.’

‘Contemptible.’ She thought about this for a minute. ‘I bet it means more than that.’

Leanne was doing an evening course in Old English. She was reading ‘The Nun’s Tale’. Lately she’d become fascinated by the origins of words. She was considering a course in linguistics, but wasn’t absolutely sure whether linguistics had anything to do with the history of language.

‘Give me the bloody dress.’ Susan raised her voice so that Leanne should realize that this was her wedding day . As a bride she had authority.

Leanne picked up the dress. Susan watched her. She took hold of the dress, bending over to grasp it, holding it in her arms like a dancing partner. When Susan snatched the dress from her, it was like she was stealing Leanne’s partner in a Ladies, Excuse-me. She yanked the plastic off.

Leanne joined Scott who was standing next to Susan’s small bookcase looking for a dictionary. She said, ‘You must’ve had a dictionary for school, Susan.’ Then she saw one and pulled it out. ‘Git,’ she said. ‘Look it up again.’

Scott was grouchy but did as he was told.

‘G-I-T,’ she said.

Susan was surrounded by a broken blancmange of cream taffeta. She was fiddling with the seed pearl buttons.